


Soup and Whiskey

by MalMuses



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 14x03 Coda, First Kiss, Fluff, Jack ex machina, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 18:05:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16434236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalMuses/pseuds/MalMuses
Summary: “Jack, you know Dean and I, well, we’re not…” Cas spoke quietly, making an awkward, vague hand gesture.The raised eyebrow that Jack gave him came directly from Sam. Cas could see the developing bitch face and it was equal parts entertaining and alarming.“Really,” Cas confirmed. “We aren’t.”Jack put his spoon down slowly to pick up his juice. “Then you should be,” he responded easily, as if it was the simplest thing in the world.A little 14x03 coda.





	Soup and Whiskey

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn’t going to write anything for this episode, so this is a little late. I had a bit of writer's block this weekend though, and I needed something to break it, so here is a little throwaway coda for 14x03.
> 
> With thanks to [andimeantittosting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saylee/pseuds/andimeantittosting) and [cutelittlekitty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutelittlekitty)

“Are you feeling any better?” Cas asked quietly, using his foot to close the door behind him before bringing the full tray over. 

Jack still sat on the bed, the blanket over his legs as he squinted at the small TV Sam and Dean had helped set up in his bedroom. He'd turned his head at the sound of Cas’s knock and watched Cas enter with the tray. His smile was grateful despite the sharp cough that followed.

“Honestly, no,” Jack responded, a slight sigh escaping as he pushed himself up more firmly on the pillows.

Jack moved his legs to the side so that Cas could perch on the edge of the bed and place the tray down on his thighs.

“Chicken noodle soup, crackers, and orange juice,” Cas intoned solemnly, pointing almost proudly to each one on the tray as if Jack somehow wouldn’t know what they were. 

“I’m sure this will help me feel much better,” Jack replied earnestly as he reached for the spoon. “Thank you, Cas.”

Cas merely nodded, but he didn’t stand up from the bed. He watched Jack stir the soup, before looking down at his hands. He seemed to contemplate his words, turning them over a few times before he spoke.

“I heard you, earlier,” Cas began after a moment. “When you said to Laura that I was one of your dads.”

Jack looked back to Cas and nodded, slurping down a spoonful of soup but letting Cas continue.

“I just wanted to say that hearing you say that meant a lot to me. And I’m sure Sam—”

“He can be Uncle Sam,” Jack interrupted with an eager little grin, the smile sticking on his face as he reached to open the sleeve of crackers. 

Cas blinked. “You didn’t mean…” he trailed off.

“I meant you and Dean, of course,” Jack said. He looked slightly amused but turned his attention back to his soup. “I know Dean didn’t like me at first. But I understand now. He was so deep in grief and I was the only thing he could lash out at. I don’t blame him.”

Cas’s head tilted slightly to the side and he opened his mouth to ask a question, but Jack continued talking happily to his soup, unawares.

“Now, I just want to make him proud, just like I do with you. I don’t have my powers but... I guess today showed me there are other ways,” Jack added, dunking a cracker into the silky soup broth. “If you and Dean would just get married someday, it’d almost be like a real family.” Jack laughed, gulping down the cracker.

Cas made a small choking sound. “Why on earth would—”

“I mean, apart from the supernatural parts, obviously,” Jack babbled on obliviously, reaching for the spoon again. “I may be struggling with losing my powers, but I’m glad I have my family.”

Jack’s beaming smile was so bright and honest, Cas was caught in it and couldn’t help but return it.

A moment passed while Jack slurped up a noodle before Cas tried to respond again.

“Jack, you know Dean and I, well, we’re not…” Cas spoke quietly, making an awkward, vague hand gesture.

The raised eyebrow that Jack gave him came directly from Sam. Cas could see the developing bitch face and it was equal parts entertaining and alarming.

“Really,” Cas confirmed. “We aren’t.”

Jack put his spoon down slowly to pick up his juice. “Then you should be,” he responded easily, as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

“Why?” Cas blurted out, frowning, blinking and lost.

“Cas,” Jack sounded almost like he was chastising the millennia old angel. “I know I was only born a short time ago, but it wasn’t yesterday.”

Cas’s cheeks heated as he fumbled his response. “Jack, I—”

“I can see the way you look at each other. You love him,” Jack stated confidently. “You’re _in_ _love_ with him.”

Cas’s gaze dropped back to his lap and he stared at a fold of his trench coat for a moment. Clearing his throat, Jack saved him from speaking again.

“He loves you too, you know,” Jack said firmly. He paused and chugged down the last half of his juice before finishing. “Sam says so. Sam would know.”

“Sam?” Cas asked, incredulous. “Why didn’t Sam ever tell me that? Why would he even say that to begin with?”

Jack shook his head slowly. “Because,” he smiled fondly, “Uncle Sam is observant, but both of my dads are dumbasses, apparently.”

Cas frowned, and Jack innocently returned to eating his soup. 

Several awkward minutes later, Cas finally opened his mouth to speak, but Jack cut him off again, his tone more joyful than Cas recalled hearing it of late.

“Go to Dean, Castiel. You don’t have to watch me eat.”

Smiling in disbelief, Cas quickly rose from the bed and left the sick boy to his soup. 

He only had to travel a few doors down the corridor before he reached Dean’s room. Deliberately, he raised his hand and knocked, not giving himself any time to think about it or flee to another part of the bunker.

“Come in,” Dean’s voice was gruff. 

Cas entered the room with a nervous smile, clicking the door shut behind him. 

“How are you, Dean?” he asked softly. 

Dean looked up from where he sat on the bed, a glass of whiskey in hand. “Not too bad, I guess,” he admitted. “Given everything, y’know. Glad to be back in my own clothes, my own bed, just… home.”

Cas smiled. “I’m glad you’re home too, Dean,” he replied. He stepped up to the edge of the bed, lowering himself to sit a respectful distance away from Dean on the side of the mattress. “We were very worried about you.”

Dean gave a low, unconvincing chuckle. “Well, you should have known better. Michael never stood a chance.”

The words hung there, both of them knowing they were far from true and that they had no idea why Michael had left Dean. But they didn’t break the gentle, easy lie. It was better that way, for now.

“I’d always bet on you,” Cas responded, turning to lock Dean with his vivid blue gaze. “I wasn’t going to give up. People told me I needed to consider killing you, to get rid of Michael,” Cas’s voice was hard, but only for a moment, “but I couldn’t even think about it.”

“You should have, Cas,” Dean said. “Considered it, at least. We both know that.”

“Never.” Cas was utterly firm. “I couldn’t do it. Not after everything we’ve been through. You deserve better. You deserve someone to fight for you.” 

“Aww, Cas,” Dean teased, grinning slightly as he shifted in the bed, bringing his whiskey glass up to his lips. “Never knew you were such a romantic.”

“I am, actually,” Cas replied solemnly. 

Dean’s whiskey glass froze at his lips.

“Jack just, uh—” Cas cleared his throat. “He said something funny.”

Relaxing into the change of topic, Dean took a gulp of the whiskey and let one of the ice cubes drift past the edge of the glass and into his mouth. “Oh?” he asked around it.

“He said that he and Sam think you’re in love with me.”

The ice cube Dean had been toying with crunched deafeningly between Dean’s teeth.

“And,” Cas continued before Dean could splutter or speak, “I just wanted to say… I love you too, Dean. In case that ever becomes relevant.”

Dean swallowed down the ice lump rather inelegantly, twisting to place the glass on the nightstand next to the bed. “In case that ever becomes relevant?” he echoed, unable to help the grin that split his face at Cas’s formal phrasing. 

Cas bristled, turning his gaze down to his lap. “You’ve had ten years to get used to the way I speak; it really shouldn’t make you smile that much anymore,” he grumbled.

Wiping the back of his hand across his mouth to clear the ice water and whiskey from his lips, Dean bent his knees so that he could shuffle closer to Cas on the mattress. Reaching across to Cas’s shoulder, Dean ducked his head down to catch Cas’s eyes.

“Hey,” Dean said with a small, awkward smile. “I didn’t exactly deny it, though, did I?”

Cas tilted his head to the right but continued looking at Dean. “No,” he said slowly. “You didn’t deny it. But you didn’t confirm anything either. So…” Cas trailed off, entirely unsure, now. 

There was a slight tremble to Dean’s hand as it came up to Cas’s jaw. “Being possessed by Michael he… he made me feel like I was drowning,” Dean confessed. “It went on and on, and I… I didn’t think I’d make it. I’d never get out, never see Sam again, never see you again.”

Cas just listened, though he couldn’t resist tilting his head just a little further, to press into Dean’s fingers. The touch was so alien, and yet so familiar, Cas felt like he was learning Dean’s hands in an entirely new way.

“Cas, if you love me like that…” Dean’s breath hitched, and he dropped his eyes.

“I do,” Cas battled with himself enough to say. “I always have. The feeling was just… I didn’t always understand it.”

Dean nodded slowly, bringing his face back up at the comforting declaration. “Same, I guess,” he shrugged shyly. “I’ve been in love with you so long that I… kinda didn’t know what the feeling was. It was just us, the bond we have. But the times when I thought I’d lost it…” He trailed off.

Cas nodded, understanding all the things Dean couldn’t quite say. He turned his face into Dean’s hand at his jaw, pressing his lips to Dean’s palm as he responded, “I know now isn’t the best time, maybe. With everything you went through with Michael. I just needed to—”

Dean cut off Cas’s words by sliding his hand from Cas’s jaw around to the back of his head, pulling their faces close enough to rest their foreheads together. 

“Now is the best time,” Dean whispered quietly. He seemed nervous, his tongue darting out to moisten his whiskey-pinked lips, his flushed cheeks quickly shifting from alcohol warmed to gently blushing. “I need you more than ever. I need something I want. That’s not him, that’s not this life, that’s just…”

Cas reached to capture the sides of Dean’s face reverentially between his hands. “Whatever you need,” he offered firmly. “Whenever you need.”

“I need you, Cas. I told you that years ago,” Dean pointed out, smiling.

“And I told you I love you, years ago,” Cas fired back, grins overtaking them both.

Dean didn’t respond any further, crossing the scant inch that separated their mouths. 

Dean’s lips tasted like whiskey and salt. Cas gasped into them, overwhelmed that the love he’d never thought would be accepted was so enthusiastically returned. Minutes passed, Dean’s mouth, chill from the ice, sliding against Cas’s warm one. They broke apart only for relieved smiles and tiny laughs which sounded cheesy enough to set them off laughing all over again.

“Remind me to thank Jack,” Dean breathed into the space between them.

  
  



End file.
